Vox fell from 15% to 12% in a month, according to a forum poster

A forum poster attributes Vox's fall from 15% to 12% in a month to abstention and postal voting

The parliamentary term was decided in July, with half of Spain at the beach and postal voting turned into the right's scapegoat, according to one participant in the debate. The PP held up in the polls; Vox plummeted, always according to his version. From the 15% polls gave it a month before the election to the 12% it finally got. Three points that, according to the diagnosis this forum poster presents as the most repeated, were not lost at a rally or in a debate, but in the abstention of its own electorate. The party that makes the most noise on social media was the one that mobilised its own supporters the least, in his view.

From 15% to 12%: the collapse that, according to this account, nobody saw coming

The sequence is the one this forum poster lays out. The PP got practically what the polls predicted, while Vox posted the right's worst relative result. The campaign fell in the middle of July, with the beach as unfair competition and a postal voting system that, according to part of the electorate, was not made for them. The argument that, in his view, circulates most: many potential Vox voters couldn't be bothered. Neither ballot in hand nor postal application.

The contrast with the left-wing electorate is the one that stings most, always according to his diagnosis. Pensioners, housewives and middle-aged PSOE voters go to the polls with a discipline that admits no excuses. Abstention is not neutral: it always benefits whoever has the most captive vote, he argues. And that was not Vox.

Postal voting as the scapegoat

The thesis of postal vote fraud hangs over the whole conversation, according to this forum poster. Some claim it was postal voting, not the campaign, that decided the result. And he adds an uncomfortable nuance: PP leaders stayed silent because they believed denouncing it would bring them closer to the two-party system they dream of. A calculation that, judging by the results, did not come free, in his opinion.

The other leg of the argument points to the young. Kids get drunk the night before, posh kids vote with their parents or don't vote at all, in his version. The lesson in democracy is learned at demonstrations, but when push comes to shove the enthusiasm evaporates. Lots of posturing and very few ballots, he concludes.

The PP failed to mobilise too: Feijóo and his campaign against Vox

Here comes the contradiction that, according to another participant, breaks the story. If Vox collapsed, was it its own fault or because the PP shot at it? Some recall that Feijóo devoted more ammunition to attacking Vox than the PSOE. The Popular Party candidate handed out cabinet posts before voting day and talked of surpassing 150 seats; he got 137, according to this forum poster. The ridicule of refusing to take part in an electoral debate and the effect of every intervention on the price of bread, according to the most repeated joke.

The result: another PSOE-led term that many attribute to the right's inability to add up. Frijolito wanted more than 150 seats and ran into arithmetic, according to this account. The question hanging in the air is whether Vox needed the PP or the PP needed Vox. The answer, according to the data, leaves no room for doubt.

Agenda 2030 and the protest vote

Beneath the debate lies a more uncomfortable argument: the feeling that voting changes nothing because every party across the parliamentary spectrum shares the same agenda. Some simply refuse to vote so as not to legitimise sustainable development goals they consider imposed from outside. This is ideological abstention, the kind not caused by the beach or the post, but by the conviction that the system offers no real alternatives.

That lost vote is not won back with one more rally. And it explains, better than any poll, why the Spanish right keeps navel-gazing while the PSOE governs.

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With these ingredients, the next election has an easy forecast: if Vox's electorate stays home again, the result will be the same. Or worse. The open question is whether anyone has learned anything or whether we will keep blaming the postman.